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Employee Owned Co-ops are an excellent way for The 99% to reclaim the fruits of their own labour where it is recognised that The ONLY True 'Capital' - is 'Human Capital'. Thanx for the invitation and :

Published on Wednesday, February 20, 2013 by YES! Magazine
The Cooperative Way to a Stronger Economy
Co-ops—just like people—can get more done together than anyone can do alone. They come in many forms, and are more common than you might imagine.

Not cooperatives, exactly, but the idea of resources being available to the public and not privatized is one way to put economic power in the hands of the people:

"The commons protects large resources from privatization, such as the lobster fisheries in Maine or grassland management in Mongolia, and allows collectives to regulate extraction. Exploitation is avoided because no one individual has more of a right to the source than any other."

"The commons movement is a reaction to exploitative free market capitalism. It rejects the notion that resources, spaces and other assets are purely a means to wealth. It condemns the privatization of public works..."

I actually got that article from you, I think. And, yes it deserves a full spelling out and a full read as it shows how our society can be structured so differently than it is. Things don't have to be this way!

And, bravo to Charles Eisenstein for merging philosophy with economics. Sacred Economics is brilliant in its capacity to show how economics should be subservient to humans and their happiness and not vice versa.

Thanx for your heads up above re. Thomas Hedges, on this important thread and I append the Bernie Sanders item above in compliment of the Charles Eisentein links and re his book, 'Sacred Economics', I again link to : http://sacred-economics.com/read-online/ .

"Those private retirement subsidies cost over 5 times as much as Social Security payments. So, if cutting costly tax breaks is the goal, then we get far more savings by putting tax subsidies to private pensions on the chopping block. But for some reason, those private tax breaks are getting a pass, while paying Social Security benefits are taking all the heat."

And, Sanders points out the tax avoidance of corporations as working class Americans struggle to pay theirs.

This is all a ruse and the American people need to wake up soon and see how they are being ripped off!

"Shouldn’t the investors or the banks take the haircut instead of taxpayers? After all, whose fault is it that 5 million families have lost their homes to foreclosure since 2007 and 11 million homeowners are presently underwater? Not the taxpayer. Let the responsible parties bear the costs. That’s the way the system is supposed to work, right?"

Un-fkn-believable ! The mind boggles just as the sinews tighten and the teeth clench !! WTFU America !!!

In another nutshell and excerpted from the linked item : "The looting of America. - American capitalism as currently practiced clearly redistributes income upward. According to Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, the richest 1 percent of Americans now hold 25 percent of the country's wealth. The total income share for the 1 percent has jumped more in the U.S. than in any other major Western country since 1960, according to new research by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. The top 1 percent's share of income dipped in some European countries and increased by up to 4 percentages elsewhere, but in the good old U.S., land of opportunity, it soared over 9 percentage points." Yes, "Sad sigh" but then 'stiffened spine' and onwards and upwards - because after all, what have we got to lose ?

"We’re collecting nothing from the big banks in return for our generosity. Instead we’re demanding sacrifice from the elderly, the disabled, the poor, the young, the middle class – pretty much everybody, in fact, who isn’t “too big to fail.”

That’s injustice on a medieval scale, served up with a medieval caste-privilege flavor. The only difference is that nowadays injustices are presented with spreadsheets and PowerPoints, rather than with scrolls and trumpets and kingly proclamations."

Kudos 'qm'!! This is one of the coolest things I've seen when it comes to solutions 'by the people, for the people'!! 'Turning the deserts green' and showing this beautiful earth's people how to feed themselves through sustainable gardens is the epitome of health. Sustenance and jobs! The bedrock of a "People's Society'.

These links are of the same ethos for the global population to collectively turn our backs on the system of the oligarchs, as the "Co-op" thread...and as such, these links would fit on that thread beautifully. I'll transfer them over...if you don't mind. ;-)

We people need to take care of each other...because the government never will! Thanks again quantumystic!

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The Jordanian Department of Education is noticing too! This garden won a national competition for environmental projects for schools - which means the whole, water stressed country is looking at the solutions found in this garden.

"It's possible to rehabilitate large-scale damaged ecosystems." Environmental film maker John D. Liu documents large-scale ecosystem restoration projects in China, Africa, South America and the Middle East, highlighting the enormous benefits to people and planet of undertaking these efforts globally.

The FreeDA Cooperative Employment Service is the 501(c)4 organization that would assess the skills of the unemployed individuals to patronize it and match them with a suggested cooperative business plan. Upon acceptance or rejection of the plan for an alternative plan, the FreeDA/CES would facilitate the crowdfunding of the new cooperative business. Most likely to precede the establishment of FreeDA/CES would be a cooperative community composed of a Free Democracy Credit Union and its Free Democracy Mutual Insurance Company which together would lay the foundation of support for the FreeDA Cooperative Employment Service. With the nationwide establishment of the Free Democracy Credit Union, Free Democracy Mutual Insurance Company, and FreeDA Cooperative Employment Service, the unemployed of each city would be consistently channeled into either newly or already established worker-owner cooperatives, creating an American version of Mondragon http://www.mondragon-corporation.com/ENG.aspx and modifying the economic well-being of society at a fundamental level.

Ah, but will someone actually go out and start a workers' cooperative? Everyone here likes to spend a lot of time talking about how great it would be, but no one ever seems to be much interested in actually doing it.

And then, of course, there's the small matter of actually making it work, which is a good deal more difficult and problematic than many of you might expect.

I've been waiting for some time for somebody here to actually have a go at it, but it looks like it's all idle talk - these threads come up every so often, but nothing ever happens. There are always lots and lots of excuses about why it can't happen.

If OWS were a serious movement, it'd start a workers' cooperative and prove that it's principles actually work in action and are capable of supporting people and providing the health care, pensions and other things it claims are people's rights. But then, folks would have to stop clinging to abstract political theory and deal with cold, hard facts like making payroll every month and staying up late at night to deal with worthless government bureaucrats who don't give a rat's ass about your business and only want money from you. Looks to me like everyone here finds the abstract political theory ever so much more fun and interesting, and they aren't so much interested in the grubby business of actually doing it. So I doubt that OWS and its supporters will ever do any such thing.

Other organizations are already in position to make it happen. All OWS would have to do is simply popularize the idea and rally the support. The actual work would be done by others. But even this would be asking too much of those only dedicated to protesting the problems. Even the debt relief effort, which is very limited in scope and amounts to nothing more than a goodwill gesture for a problem too vast to be affected by it, falls short of actually establishing something like a mutual insurance company with health care insurance that can substitute for a single-payer universal health plan and at the very least reduce the patronage of the private health insurance companies profiting off of the masses. Even without worker-owner cooperatives, the act of either forming or expanding an existing credit union and mutual insurance company specifically for the financial collective benefit of the 99% would do a lot to change things for the better. And again, OWS wouldn't actually have to do it themselves, just popularize it and support the organizations to actually do it.

But then of course, someone else would have to set up these other --currently hypothetical -- organizations, and they'd have to coordinate with OWS, and someone at OWS street would have to actually do some coordinating, and then everybody would have to confront the realities of running a business and paying people, and all the rest of it. And of course, it'll never happen, because nobody here, or in the rest of what styles itself as the radical left, is interested in actually doing anything useful.

For example, let's take your FreeDA Cooperative Employment Service, to which you link above. You and I chatted about it a year or so ago, and at that point it was a purely hypothetical exercise -- nobody had done anything, and you couldn't get any traction when you approached OWS and others about it. Has anything happened in the last year? Is it up and running someplace?

How are the other organizations currently hypothetical? The PIRGs exist. The US Federation of Worker Cooperatives exists. Democracy At Work exists. The PIRGs would do the actual coordinating. The only thing that OWS would be invited to do is popularize and support the effort in the same way they had brought attention to the 'move your money' effort and have been supporting the jubilee effort. No actual work on their part, just OWS doing what it does best; being seen and heard.

The Federation of Workers Cooperatives is an interesting development, and on the right track to be sure. PIRGs not so much, but that's mainly because this sort of thing isn't in their bailiwick. Democracy at work not at all interesting. Looks like more blather from academics who mistake talking for doing. But I agree with you about the Federation. That's what people who like to spout off about workplace democracy ought to be going out and doing, and I commend them for it. The problem, of course, is that nobody around here that I am aware of is to be found on that list of coop businesses on their website, and I don't expect that to change any time soon. If I'm wrong, somebody please holler and set me straight.

As the biggest proponent of these ideals, is there reason why you have not attempted such an enterprise or at least, been involved in? And if so, what was the result? If not, what would be the reasons why ?

My personal affairs are irrelevant. I happen to not work in a private, for profit institution, but that’s all I want to say. I shouldn’t have to tell you about what I do in order to advocate a more co-operative economic organization.

I was not trying to pry into your personal life, but rather get some background on your business experience (or direct knowledge of), specifically in the area mentioned. Apologies if you misunderstood my intentions.

Maybe we have a misundstanding. I am just asking why you have not tried something you are such an advocate for. That seems to me not such a personal question. But that is fine if you choose not to answer. But your advocating something and expecting others to do it, yet excluding yourself. That is why I asked.

No, there’s no misunderstanding – at least not on my part. You keep asking me about my personal business, business experience and this and that. Let me ask you something: does someone who advocates capitalism have to start up a capitalist institution in order to not be in any way defamed his opinions?

I will answer it this way: A person who does not practice what they preach is not listened to as much as someone who does. I just asked if you ever tried your idea yet you advocate for others to do so. A simple "no" would have been sufficient.

You’re not going to get a simple “yes” or “no”. I don’t answer personal questions.

You didn't answer the question. Do you believe that in order to not be in any way defamed your opinions and principles in supporting private enterprise and capitalism, you must have started, or be in the process of starting a capitalist institution?

Not necessarily. But maybe it is this way. When one is advocating for change or something that seems risky to others, would not it be better for that person to be experienced or involved in the change or risk in order to convince others to follow, rather than asking others to do it for them? If one is advocating something, they should be willing to take part in it. Does that make better sense to you? No one is defaming the advocate by asking a question such as " did you ever or would you ever try it"? To me, that is not a personal question of one who is advocating something.